Why People Are So Confident When They’re Wrong

Overconfidence is one of the sneakiest cognitive biases: your brain loves shortcuts, so it’ll often overestimate how much you know or how likely you are to be right. Veritasium unpacks the real Dunning-Kruger curve, shows how a lack of feedback (or the wrong kind) can send you blissfully off-course, and even points out how a bit of confidence can be healthy—until it isn’t.

Through stories like Nick Leeson’s rogue trading fiasco and the collapse of one of England’s oldest banks, we see how unchecked certainty can lead to disaster. The good news? You can train yourself out of it with consistent feedback loops, humility hacks, and a few simple mental checks to make sure you’re not the smartest person in the room… just the most curious.

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